My point in this essay isn’t to wag my finger at Tyler Cowen; I know he isn’t “for” war and I know he wasn’t pining for a war to stimulate the economy. Rather, I am criticizing the fact that in modern American life, it is a far worse sin to even say or write something that could conceivably be construed as tolerating slavery, whereas discussing the benefits of war carries no professional repercussions and hardly any social ostracism. Yes, American plantation slavery was a horrible thing, but the melting of children at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was at least as despicable. And yet, Tyler Cowen can call the Manhattan Project a “speedy and decisive achievement” without fear of alienating his respectable lunch companions. Such a declaration at worst provokes his critics into complaining about opportunity cost, rather than demanding an apology to the descendants of the victims of the U.S. government’s atomic bombs.

Perhaps, what was going through there minds were the hundreds of thousands of troops who would have died invading Japan.

Yes, those deaths were awful in those cities, but why everyone latches on to them as unmerciful killing I do not know. More were dying in one night of fire bombings in cities in Japan and Germany. Many people were starving. Hardly a mention. But, perhaps we should ask the victims of Nan King what an appropriate action might have been in subduing Japan.

Bob recently wrote that tyranny cannot exist without the consent of the governed. If this is true, do the governed possess any responsibility for their tyrannical government? If they do, are the collateral victims in Japan and Germany victims or participants?

One thing is certain; our actions were tempered and the eventual reshaping of Japan and Germany desirable. Germany and Japan demonstrated clearly that they would not act with restraint in any situation. Would Germany and Japan have been as judicious with the use of the bomb? (Yes, I realize we had only two at the time)

I’ve asked Dr. Bob this before and I ask again; what alternative did the US have in the war on Japan? (Actually, I asked how the US revolution might have avoided violence.) Would Dr. Bob never call the police. I Iive in a corner of the world where many fancy themselves non-violent, but never hesitate to call the police, a means of violence/force and, oddly, act surprised when the police use violence..

By early summer 1945, the Japanese fully realized that they were beaten. Why did they nonetheless fight on? As Anscombe wrote, “It was the insistence on unconditional surrender that was the root of all evil.”[1]

We didn’t have to go to war with Japan at all. FDR did everything in his power to induce the Pearl Harbor attack. The Japanese were ready to surrender in May 1945 so long as they could keep their emperor. After we nuked them, we said they could keep their emperor.

So why was the USA compelled to land troops on the Japanese islands? Was it to pursue that magical religious transformative process that can only be accomplished by the US military?

Callous? If you want a definition of callous perhaps we should look up the rape of Nan King. Japanese playing catch the baby on the bayonet and raping and killing nearly every woman seems to qualify as callous.

I am not sure what Eduardo thinks I resent. We are all beneficiaries of that conflict. Anyone who has unconditionally surrendered to the US has ended up better off.. Why fight on? Good question. Why did so few surrender on every island? Why did they, with almost no exception, fight to the last man? Was it unreasonable to expect the same on the mainland? They had a bastardized version of Bushido, much like most fundamentalist do.

The Japanese populace condoned the army’s actions. Innocents? If your city was under seige and you could surrender to the Nazi army, the Soviet army, the Japanese army (or even the Japanese people) or the US army, I think it is obvious to whom you would surrender, no matter who you are. I am not.

Why bomb these cities? Here’s what I found:
1.The range of the aircraft which would carry the bomb.
2.The desirability of visual bombing in order to insure the most effective use of the bomb.
3.Probable weather conditions in the target areas.
4.Importance of having one primary and two secondary targets for each mission, so that if weather conditions prohibited bombing the target there would be at least two alternates.
5.Selection of targets to produce the greatest military effect on the Japanese people and thereby most effectively shorten the war.
6.The morale effect upon the enemy.

These led in turn to the following:
1.Since the atomic bomb was expected to produce its greatest amount of damage by primary blast effect, and next greatest by fires, the targets should contain a large percentage of closely-built frame buildings and other construction that would be most susceptible to damage by blast and fire.
2.The maximum blast effect of the bomb was calculated to extend over an area of approximately 1 mile in radius; therefore the selected targets should contain a densely built-up area of at least this size.
3.The selected targets should have a high military strategic value.
4.The first target should be relatively untouched by previous bombing, in order that the effect of a single atomic bomb could be determined.

As far as us stating it all; yes, I would concede some truth. There were ten years of Japanese aggression leading up to Pearl. Did we exacerbate it all? Likely. But so did the WW I Armistace, Britain’s Imperialilsm, heck, we could say the explorers caused problems, we could even trace it back to Ug and Nog in their fur bathing suits out in front of the cave sluggin out over something causing clans to split and carry grudges.

Bottom line, even if it was completelyout fault, which it wasn’t, once Japan was taking over the south Pacific, you could not turn back the clock. It is easy to play arm chair QB and say we should have done this or shouldn’t have done that, but no amount of kissy face would have stopped Japan at that point. Compromise was weakness, and they would chop your head (much better than those Muslim knuckleheads)

But this is NOT what Bob is talking about. I sense his assertion is; violence is wrong, always. Fine. My question is, once you kick the hornet’s nest, what do you do. Rolling over to Japan would not have worked. In a private e-mail, Dr. Bob felt that the violence of the American Rrevolution could have been averted. When one reads the list of greviences in the Declaration of Independence I wonder how?

So please, no matter what you feel about me, what you think I stand for answer the question; When faced with an over whelming threat of force (the Japansese army, the Nazis, Atilla the Hun, or even the US army, or ISIL in Iraq), when faced with certain anihilation if you do not surrender, how do you non-violently resist without losing your head, ending up in a gulag, or and oven? What can you really say or do that is non-violent and effective to prevent the guy who has comandeered the plane from flying it into the building. Is the only solution to submit and die?

‘I am not sure what Eduardo thinks I resent. We are all beneficiaries
of that conflict. ‘

We benefited from that conflict? How dare you little man. What do you
know of the lives of other people?

‘Anyone who has unconditionally surrendered to the US has ended up
better off..’

Are you talking about WW2? Or anyone in history?

Japan and Germany were incorporated into the american empire, and are
occupied territories to this day. Their culture is a pale reflection
of what it was. But of course, value is subjective, and they could be
better to you.

If you are talking about any conflict in history, work your way down
this list [1] and come back to me. If you want a particular example,
this one[2] is pretty good.

About what you resent, it has been my experience that defenders of war
in general have very low self respect (please, don’t mistake that for
self esteem), and try to make themselves feel better by attaching
themselves to collectivist causes. The apotheosis of any collectivist
cause is war.

Low self respect usually comes from the resentment of your betters,
and the refusal to stand up as an individual due to weakness.

Wow. You are too kind. Lilttle man? Low self respect? I have enough self respect and I am big enough not to answer in kind.

Japan and Germany could have been left in ruins, they weren’t. Germany nearly starved, we fed them, same with Japan. Both countries are more vibrant, more free, more productive than they were under their previous regimes. Certainly not a reason to invade them, but to have left them in ruins would have been to repeat the mistakes of the WWI armistice. I will not write a history book and go through every conflict as requested. If you personally feel you do not benefit from the conditions in the US, there are alternatives.

No matter the causes of the conflict, Japan and Germany clearly had larger designs which would have inevitably included the US. You would not have benefited under either system.

The bottom lilne is, was war with Japan justified? If not, how could Japan’s aggression have been stopped without armed conflict? (This I would truly like an answer to. How could a mother in Nan King who had her child ripped from her arms and tossed on a bayonet then to be raped and murdered herself non-violently resisted?)

As far as bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki, reasons have been provided. A large group of people worked on target selection and thought it out thoroughly. The decision was fairly reasonable based on the information available and the results desired. The loss of civilian life is regretable, but remember, nearly 22,000 Japanese civilians killed themselves on Saipan. They were not targeted. It was indicative of the mentality troops invading Japan would deal with and likely weighed on the decision to target the cities in question.

Japan had been an aggressor nation for ten years prior to Pearl. Did we do things to exacerbate this, perhaps. It is hard to believe that FDR or any other politician would lead us into a world conflict with questionable out come and the outcome was highly questionable. A casualty rate of 30,000 on Iwo Jima should tell us that. That is 30,000 in one month. That does not include other fighting going on that month in the Pacific or Europe, just one tiny island.

Regardless of what cused it, we did not attack anyone. You can blame FDR, or the WWI armistice. We could probably go back to the first cave men to form clans to attack one another. The bottom line is this; once Japan began to conquer the South Pacific it is unlikely that any reasoning would have dissuaded them. In such a case, what does one do? Clearly surrender to Japan was a very bad thing to do. There are many examples of this. How do you stop and aggressive force without violence? It does not matter if it is Japan, Nazi Germany, Attilla the Hun, or some wacked out Muslim hack sawing someone’s head off in Iraq, or the US military marching on you, for that matter. What do you say or do to prevent someone who has comandeered a plane and is flying it into a building? Is the only alternative to surrender or die? Bob said one time that the violence of the American Rrevolution could have been averted, but reading the list of grievances in the Declaration of iIndependence, it is difficult to see how. I would like to know how? He seems to be suggesting that the violence of WWII could have been averted but how do you stop the Japan of WWII without resorting to violence? I would honestly like to know.

The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible. So far as we have already formed engagements, let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop. Europe has a set of primary interests which to us have none; or a very remote relation. Hence she must be engaged in frequent controversies, the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence, therefore, it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves by artificial ties in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics, or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships or enmities.

Not participating does not keep you frrom getting killed. So you simply sit on the plane as it flies into the building and say, “I am not participating in this.”? Do you honestly believe that will work? MArching into the ovens didn’t work either. There are elements in the world who would only stop their violence once their perceived opponent was eliminated and then, likely, go on to demonize something else.

I am curious, as most here are libertarians, or at least a varied form thereof, and most profess a non-violent tendencies, do people here support the second amendment or the idea that individuals may violently defend themselves against others and the government (I am not looking for an advocation of violence. Dr. Bob would rightly object to that on this site.) I am asking about the general principle of self defense even to the point of resorting to violence. Obviously, if the idea that violent self defense is wrong, then violent defense on one’s behalf would be wrong (i.e. armies and police forces, pricate or publiic). That would makes sense, but to say there is a right to self defense but nations maynot defend themselves seems skewed. If there is no right to self defense then police forces, public or private, are wrong as they are merely violent extensions of our will, we then only washing our hands of the violent act they commit on our behalf.

Thanks for being the only one so far to directly address the question war/violencce and how one may pratically avoid violence without falling victim to it.

So, if this is true, what should our action been? we couldn’t ignore Japan’s approach to Hawaii. Telling them we knew of their plan would only have caused them to alter their plan. If we met them in route, we would have to engage them. But if they were detered by our mere presence or warned off by our knowledge, Japan still engaged in an act of war that required some sort of response. An unsuccessful act of war is still an act of war. I do not think finger wagging would have done the trick.

Wow. What a heroic mentality. If you are in a fight with someone you ask for unconditional surrender, or else you will use a new secret weapon nobody has ever heard of without showing him that it is real (Rationalize this by telling yourself that the demonstration might not work or might be ignored or assumed to be fake). If he doesn’t react you just go and wipe out lots of innocent people he cares for with the new weapon. Proceed until he gives up and surrenders unconditionally. I thought only the bad guys on TV do this to enforce their demands…

What they should have done? Easy:

1. Warn them what you are about to do, but don’t ask for unconditional surrender, why not start with asking for a truce?

2. Show them that you really are capable to do that by giving them an impressive show without hitting any people. No matter if they might ignore this or don’t believe it. That is THEIR decision. Don’t decide it for them!

3. If that doesn’t help, then depending on what you told them at step 1, it should still be only a bluff to kill innocents (I would not have threatened them with it in the in the first place since that is MAD MAD MAD anyway). Just don’t bomb innocents! Use it defensively against military units if necessary and isolate them on their island.

Innocents cannot be protected by killing other innocents! And no the numbers do not matter! It is wrong to intentionally kill even one innocent person to possibly save whatever other amount of innocent people.

Bob recently wrote that tyranny cannot exist without the consent of the governed. If this is true, do the governed possess any responsibility for their tyrannical government? If they do, are the collateral victims in Japan and Germany victims or participants?

That is a very good question. I can’t believe that some fishermen in Nagasaki personally made the decision to attack Pearl Harbour. Although perhaps there was more that could have been done to discourage the government from going to war. I remember when my government decided to Invade Iraq, people really did look at you strangely if you started suggesting it was a bad idea. The Aus government didn’t consult with anyone before taking action, they just quickly started sending troops, and if anyone complained it was like you were some sort of traitor.

The other point is that the choice of Hiroshima was arbitrary, so some Japanese got severely punished, while others were OK. Obviously that isn’t “fair” but why would anyone expect fairness anyhow? There are actions, they have consequences, often not what you expect.

No. I am certain some fisherman did not give his ok, but he gave his consent by allowing a despotic leader to rule.

None of the targets were arbritrary:There were many logical reasons why the targets were chosen and they all make sense.

I pinched this from another site:

1.The range of the aircraft which would carry the bomb.
2.The desirability of visual bombing in order to insure the most effective use of the bomb.
3.Probable weather conditions in the target areas.
4.Importance of having one primary and two secondary targets for each mission, so that if weather conditions prohibited bombing the target there would be at least two alternates.
5.Selection of targets to produce the greatest military effect on the Japanese people and thereby most effectively shorten the war.
6.The morale effect upon the enemy.

These led in turn to the following:
1.Since the atomic bomb was expected to produce its greatest amount of damage by primary blast effect, and next greatest by fires, the targets should contain a large percentage of closely-built frame buildings and other construction that would be most susceptible to damage by blast and fire.
2.The maximum blast effect of the bomb was calculated to extend over an area of approximately 1 mile in radius; therefore the selected targets should contain a densely built-up area of at least this size.
3.The selected targets should have a high military strategic value.
4.The first target should be relatively untouched by previous bombing, in order that the effect of a single atomic bomb could be determined.

The weather records showed that for five years there had never been two successive good visual bombing days over Tokyo, indicating what might be expected over other targets in the home islands. The worst month of the year for visual bombing was believed to be June, after which the weather should improve slightly during July and August and then become worse again during September. Since good bombing conditions would occur rarely, the most intense plans and preparations were necessary in order to secure accurate weather forecasts and to arrange for full utilization of whatever good weather might occur. It was also very desirable to start the raids before September.

This is the default defence for dropping the bomb on civilians but it does not hold up to scrutiny. Japan had already offered to surrender with the only condition of consequence being the continuation of the institution of the Emperor. Truman refused but kept the Emperor after he decided to melt those children. He should have hung at Nuremberg along with Churchill and the Nazi criminals.

The first bomb, dropped on Hiroshima, had its fuse set before take off. For months previous to the Enola Gay’s mission, B29s had been crashing on take off incinerating their crews. The crew members of the Enola Gay believed there was a good chance of this happening to them. Were this to occur, they likely would “melt” everyone on Tinian.

Of the 8000 Japanese defending Tinian, only 300 were captured and it wasn’t because we wouldn’t accept surrender. Of the 31000 defending Saipan (Japanese home land) 971 were captured, over 500 committed suicide, 22000 civillians died and most of those were suicides.

The idea of the US services cheerily destorying Japan is very misleading. If yo wish to see cheery destroyers, look to the troops in Nan King. Officers had beheading contests.

I think (?) the problem is, it is a more political age than it was 20 years ago, or at least that’s my hunch. This means we tend to utilize political / class logic. It isn’t so much about being for or against war in a political age, as this is where the bad kind of subjectivism comes in..it is about what class interests war. 20 and 30 somethings and younger who were educated in American Universities, who utilize any intellectual or artistic ideas and who have migrated to big urban centers are de facto socialists who live, believe, and have the culture of what socialists of all past areas believed , many of it’s premises are assumed and in many cases it is tough to really divert too far from left wing catch phrases. Mix that with the fact that the right wing is about as ultra-right wing as it has ever been, have patriotism, imperialism, and torture ever been linked so blatantly in most of our lives? We just suffered 8 years apiece under the most right and most left wing governments we have had in a while the effects may be showing (mix that with the decline of the universities over the past few decades and the citizens who now are educated by them and buy their narratives).

So with a political age, in their self-satisfied smugness you have right wingers who can show slow motion sentimental videos and hooking it up with God and Country, blood and soil, or whatever while justifying Japanese internment, keeping out immigrants, making sure everyone speaks English, and torturing people for ones imperialistic adventurism.

And with the left, the very superficial humanitarian mask starts to slip a bit and it’s real face comes out. Left Wingers simply want left wing wars and revolutions and not “reactionary” ones, and they are more than happy to admit that they like reeducating and socializing their citizenry in a more “progressive” and “politically correct” manner.

Of course, being that the left is a more intellectual class, intellectuals will have a tendency to pander to these outlets with “progressive” and “adventurous” ideas about war and not “reactionary” things that aren’t
“politically correct”, like slavery. To make such a connection between a “progressive revolution” and a “reactionary war” is “bourgeois logic” . And if you wish to disagree with their identity politics and classes, you are using “bourgeois logic”.

This is what gets people off. The two wings are this blatant now, they are that satisfied with themselves. Hence people will cheerfully and blatantly nullify some discourse while keeping others. What is free speech? Left or right wingism of course! People will gladly call themselves “politically correct”. People will openly pander towards the “class conscious” that suits their ends, so an intellectual will appeal to “progressive” sources. Is it responsible for a scholar to write about a technical abstraction and use the analogy of war to titillate a newspaper audience? I guess if it is a progressive idea with a progressive audience…because progressive newspaper readers are well informed

Moral: depending on what you figure the anointed class or wing are, you can kill as many people as you want and do any action you want, be it “progressive” or “patriotic”.

“A party is a group whose members propose to act in concert in the competitive struggle for political power. If that were not so it would be impossible for different parties to adopt exactly or almost exactly the same programme. Yet this happens as everyone knows. Party and machine politicians are simply the response to the fact that the electoral mass is incapable of action other than a stampede, and they constitute an attempt to regulate political competition exactly similar to the corresponding practices of a trade association. The psychotechnics of party management and party advertising, slogans and marching tunes, are not accessories. They are of the essence of politics. So is the political boss.” Schumpeter

I believe that it was in Bob’s Guide to the Great Depression that pointed out that it was not right-wing/left-wing so much as activist/non-activist philosophy. Ivy League politicians, like Bush and Obama, believe that the economy is manageable. Certainly, “compassionate conservative” could not have originated anywhere other than academia.

1. I’ve become convinced that it is a deeply held religion to which its adherents have an extreme emotional attachment. The democrats see the government as having almost unlimited transformative powers in the domestic arena with significant transformative powers in foreign affairs, so long as they are in charge. Our “allies” the republicans are exactly the same (it turns out) but only when the magical powers are applied by the military or drug warriors. Both sides see bombing every last city in Germany and Japan as a transformative application of unique and magical American benevolence. What is worse is that these activities seem to be the source of much of the meaning of life for the adherents (or maybe all of it). Their lives have meaning because they are part of this holy transformative application of do-gooder government power. That might explain why we can never get a statist to even focus upon the fact that their activities are simply a form of the initiation of violence. The subject always gets changed, the definitions fudged. Always Always Always. Death and destruction (or poverty and depressions) are just an unfortunate by-product of the transformative process. If it fails, it is only because we didn’t try hard enough. Or……

2. Watch O’Reilly from last night. We are good and we applied our magical help to people who just didn’t appreciate it, the Vietnamese and the Iraqis. But we are the great source of good in the world so all the lost brave soldiers did not die in vain.

“And conservatives don’t seem to care. War is the one government program they assume will succeed. Their talk shows, magazines, and newspapers clamor for war. Their think-tanks ask no skeptical questions, issue no cost-benefit analyses. The same people who ridicule liberal welfare programs for “throwing money at the problem” are willing to take exactly the same approach to terrorism. And the liberal programs at least aren’t meant to kill people.” Joe Sobran

“What is worse is that these activities seem to be the source of much of the meaning of life for the adherents (or maybe all of it). Their lives have meaning because they are part of this holy transformative application of do-gooder government power.”

Great point.

This is a byproduct of growing up and being educated in a society that is supported by philosophers who relentlessly attack and have little to no confidence in individualist reason. When the individual only has meaning to the extent that the species or “society” or country or class has meaning in the philosophical sense, then I think it is reasonably expected that there would be masses of people whose sense of self worth is predicated on the low hanging fruit that is the pride and strength and historical significance of states and the “good” classes.

Unless and until the philosophers of the day rediscover the Rationalist roots of civilized society, the state will continue to grow and civilized society will continue to decline.

I have no intention of debating LK on this again. However, the main reason I did debate him in the past was because of his insistence upon distorting the importance of this quote from Hayek:

Remember, please: that is the crucial concept. The point I want to make is that this equilibrium structure of prices is something which we cannot know beforehand because the only way to discover it is to give the market free play; by definition, therefore, the divergence of actual prices from the equilibrium structure is something that can never be statistically measured. The theory which asserts that unemployment is an effect of a deviation of the actual price structure from the equilibrium structure is thus a theory that cannot be confirmed by statistics.

I submit that the main reason our NAP and/or economic calculation analyses are rejected out-of-hand without real analysis by the statists is because we are claiming:

a) Not only that average people can manage their own lives,

b) BUT THAT THEY MUST BE ALLOWED TO MANAGE THEIR OWN LIVES (if only to elicit an undistorted price structure).

This causes distress in the statist because once private property is rigorously enforced via the NAP, there no longer remains any role for the statist to achieve Nirvana via employment of the state’s magical powers. Further, the entire Austro-libertarian analysis insists that the statists are not only not a positive source for good, but they are instead the cause of the problems the statist has devoted his emotional life to solving.

BTW, they hate us. If you doubt that, read the comments on Salon.com. And they hated us before reading my analysis.

This is the reason why stating the facts about “The Civil War” does no good. Just pointing out that the Union was still returning runaway slaves during the war destroys the illusion that the carnage was an example of the federal government’s magical transformative benevolence. It means you are a heretic about its magical powers.

I think this syndrome is far worse today than back in 1972 among the younger people due to the influence of the New Left at the time which had a much more realistic take on the activities of the American government.

I get why the world loves war/death but Christians have no excuse. I guess they are the false Christians the Bible warns of…

Matt 26:52
51And behold, one of those who were with Jesus reached and drew out his sword, and struck the slave of the high priest and cut off his ear. 52Then Jesus said to him, “Put your sword back into its place; for all those who take up the sword shall perish by the sword. 53″Or do you think that I cannot appeal to My Father, and He will at once put at My disposal more than twelve legions of angels?…

John18:11
10Simon Peter then, having a sword, drew it and struck the high priest’s slave, and cut off his right ear; and the slave’s name was Malchus. 11So Jesus said to Peter, “Put the sword into the sheath; the cup which the Father has given Me, shall I not drink it?” 12So the Roman cohort and the commander and the officers of the Jews, arrested Jesus and bound Him

Romans 12:19
17 Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. 18 If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. 19 Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,”[d] says the Lord. 20 On the contrary:

“If your enemy is hungry, feed him;
if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.
In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.”[e]

The Bible is a contradictory text, Gamble. Most examples of ethical advocacy are in couplets of for and against.

The Lord is a man of war. Exodus 15:3

The LORD hath sworn that the LORD will have war with Amalek from generation to generation. Exodus 17:16, Deuteronomy 25:19

And the LORD said unto Moses, Fear him not: for I have delivered him into thy hand, and all his people … So they smote him, and his sons, and all his people, until there was none left him alive: and they possessed his land. Numbers 21:34-35

And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, Avenge the children of Israel of the Midianites … And they warred against the Midianites, as the LORD commanded Moses; and they slew all the males. And the children of Israel took all the women of Midian captives, and their little ones … And they burnt all their cities….
And Moses was wroth with the officers … And Moses said unto them, Have ye saved all the women alive? … Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves. Numbers 31:1-18

And the LORD our God delivered him before us; and we smote him, and his sons, and all his people. And we took all his cities at that time, and utterly destroyed the men, and the women, and the little ones, of every city, we left none to remain: Deuteronomy 2:33-34

If thou shalt hear say … Certain men … saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which ye have not known … Thou shalt surely smite the inhabitants of that city with the edge of the sword, destroying it utterly, and all that is therein, and the cattle thereof, with the edge of the sword. Deuteronomy 13:12-15

When thou comest nigh unto a city to fight against it … And when the LORD thy God hath delivered it into thine hands, thou shalt smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword: But the women … shalt thou take unto thyself; and thou shalt eat the spoil of thine enemies, which the LORD thy God hath given thee. … But of the cities of these people, which the LORD thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth: But thou shalt utterly destroy them … as the LORD thy God hath commanded thee. Deuteronomy 20:10-17

And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword. Joshua 6:21

So Joshua smote all the country of the hills, and of the south, and of the vale, and of the springs, and all their kings: he left none remaining, but utterly destroyed all that breathed, as the LORD God of Israel commanded. Joshua 10:40

For it was of the LORD to harden their hearts, that they should come against Israel in battle, that he might destroy them utterly, and that they might have no favour, but that he might destroy them, as the LORD commanded Moses. Joshua 11:20

Thus saith the LORD of hosts, I remember that which Amalek did to Israel, how he laid wait for him in the way, when he came up from Egypt. Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass. 1 Samuel 15:2-3

Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel. Psalm 2:8-9

He teacheth my hands to war. Psalm 18:34

That thy foot may be dipped in the blood of thine enemies, and the tongue of thy dogs in the same. Psalm 68:23

Blessed be the LORD my strength which teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight: Psalm 144:1

Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. Matthew 10:34

He that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one. Luke 22:36

———–

Now, as with most cases of using the Bible to push one’s extra-Biblical founded views, war mongering Christians will emphasize the pro war quotes I posted, and hand wave and explain away the anti-war quotes that you posted, whereas peace oriented Christians like yourself will emphasize the anti-war quotes and hand wave and explain away the pro-war quotes that ai posted.

It seems to me there is a fairly significant difference between slavery and dropping the atomic bombs. The Japanese sank the Pacific fleet and killed 3000 Americans. The Axis committed some of the worst, most repellent crimes of the 20th century, including the genocide of European Jewry. I think it requires more revisionist history than usual to portray the attack on Pearl Harbor as provoked, although I am familiar with those arguments. Even if the attack was in some sense provoked by America’s i(n my view extraordinarily justified, if not morally required) embargo on the Japanese, Pearl Harbor was an act of war committed by a fascist state against America. If America had done nothing about the Axis, it is not at all clear to me that that would not have eventually represented a significant problem for all of us, including those who don’t believe in government.

This is not to say that it is clear beyond all discussion that the atomic bombs should have been dropped on populated cities. America was massing a one million man invasion force; again, revisionist arguments that the Japanese were ready to surrender are to my understanding of history (this was my area in college) without very much basis. The Japanese military, at best, was divided on the issue, with the Japanese army insisting on pressing on. An invasion would likely have cost far more (American and) Japanese lives than the bombs did. However, I do think there’s a strong argument that the bombs should have been dropped on unpopular islands as an example. I also agree with everyone that in war terrible things happen and countries at war do terrible things to each other. That’s why it’s a very good idea not to start wars. The Axis did start a very large one. The Allies responded. Had they not responded, all of us talking about Libertarianism might well have been shot long ago.

Slavery, on the other hand, is just evil. There are no self-defense or other justifications. It is morally uncomfortably close to the Axis genocide of Jews and other groups, or the extermination of the American Indian. This is why even discussing it in economic terms causes so much offense. This is not to say one cannot strongly condemn the dropping of the atomic bombs, or that such an argument has no teeth-it has a lot of teeth. I just don’t think it’s comparable to the institution of slavery.

Finally, I think it’s generally a mistake to ascribe motives or psychological states to people who hold different political views. Not all people who hold very right wing views are simply greedy capitalist racists paid by the Kochs who don’t care whether the poor live or die; likewise, not all people on the left are statist totalitarians who irrationally believe the government has magical powers that can be used to fix every problem and adhere to that belief because it gives their lives the only meaning such stupid lives can have. People, in this country particularly, strongly disagree about the role of government. Anarcho-capitalists may represent the very outer limit of beliefs in this regard, while presumably communists (if there are any left) represent the very outer limit on the other side of the issue. There are a lot of people in good faith in between, or even on the outer limit, as this site can attest to.

So, if I understand your reasons for justifying the incineration of innocent men, women, and children, you’d say it was ok because the Japanese attacked a military site, and it is possible more military members would have died if we fought a ground war. It seems like your defense of the use of atomic bombs would justify the use of atomic bombs by just about every country that is involved in any military fighting right now.

Innocent? Again, if people are governed only by their consent, then they consented to attempt world domination, they are culpable. Does this mean you bomb cities? Probably not, but it was the way in which war was conducted then. We need to be careful judging by our standards and our technology.

Again, more people dies in one night of fire bombnig than dies in both nuclear attacks; was that some how ok as it was conventional?

You also forget the Japan played catch the baby on the bayonet in Nan King and raped and murdered nearly every woman there. What became of US citizens in Japanese territories? Were US cities in range of Japan they certainly would have hit them

“Innocent? Again, if people are governed only by their consent, then they consented to attempt world domination, they are culpable.”

That’s some seriously twisted logic. In what way is a child in a womb culpable? A one year old, five, ten, they’re all culpable? What of those Japanese people who were against the war? Based on your logic, there are no innocents in any war, and every country should be actively targeting civilians in order to bring them to their knees.

“Does this mean you bomb cities? Probably not, but it was the way in which war was conducted then. We need to be careful judging by our standards and our technology.”

Yeah, and slavery was the way people did things back in the day, too. I still think slavery was evil regardless or time or place. And sorry, but I find baby mass murders to be the most objectionable humans that have ever walked this planet.

“Again, more people dies in one night of fire bombnig than dies in both nuclear attacks; was that some how ok as it was conventional?”

Nope, I find the mass murder of those children to be just as evil, if not more so.

“You also forget the Japan played catch the baby on the bayonet in Nan King and raped and murdered nearly every woman there. What became of US citizens in Japanese territories? Were US cities in range of Japan they certainly would have hit them”

Yeah, and they were evil, too. But I fail to see how mass murdering children because someone else mass murdered children is any less evil. It’s weird that you recognize the evil of the Japanese people killing babies, but defend the killing of babies when it is done by people who fly the same flag as you. It’s also telling that you think my disgust for the US atrocities means I don’t share an equal disgust for the atrocities committed by other countries. My values don’t change based on the nationality of the people under question.

Based on your logic, there are no innocents in any war, and every country should be actively targeting civilians in order to bring them to their knees.

That does tend to be the approach of Islamist groups such as ISIS. I might point out there’s some reason to believe that US equipment is being helpful material assistance to continue these Middle Eastern wars, but we can argue all day about exactly why that keeps happening (kind of similar to the US supplying both sides back in the Iran/Iraq war).

We have seen similar form inside the USA such as historic treatment of native American tribes.

The British during the Second Boer War quite openly used women and children as hostages, and their tactics worked. They were fighting for African gold, so they couldn’t just leave it to chance.

Once upon a time there was a sense of Chivalry, but that died out with the rise of the yeoman archer, then the later rise of guns. The age of Chivalry may come back, but don’t ignore the implication of a feudal system, and a return to serfdom for most of us.

There was never a sense of chivalry in armed conflict. People are nasty creatures. Knights only captured other kinghts and engaged in such chivalrous acts because these people could be ransomed.

Who is a civilian? Those working in the armament factory? Those bringing supplies forwardf? Sources of armament, supply, relief, and communication are all legit targets. You do not always win wars by annihilating your enemy, in fact that happens only occasionally. You win by destroying the enemy’s will to fight.

I generally agree with the pacifist anti-war sentiment, but I think it’s misguided to believe that privatising all of the functions of the state will somehow solve the problem. I don’t think that’s any sort of real solution – it’s more like sticking your head in the sand and pretending that all the problems will go away once the magical purple unicorn falls down from heaven.

WW2 and all of the previous horrific kill-fests throughout the long history of mankind didn’t happen just because people made a mistake and accidentally created a random unnecessary thing called ‘the state’.

Many of those “military” on both sides were conscripts who would have been happier staying home. They were in a uniform because their fellow citizens pointed a gun at them and ordered then to get into uniform.

While I think that war is inevitable, it is also the very definition of malinvestment. One can point to all of the things that are developed when the government is focused yet totally miss the fact that, if the investment had real value, businesses would be making those investments.

Examples abound of technological progress in the last three, relatively war-free, decades. The big advances were not the cool fireworks that we rained down on Baghdad, but the introduction of personal computers and cell phones which then morphed into tablets, smart phones, and unbelievable computing power and software. Even in space exploration, the real work is being done in the private sector, not with government contracts.

A simple mind-less example is that in the course of typing this I was able to right-click on about 5 words and the computer came up with the correct spelling. (Not being an Austrian computer, it did not like the word malinvestment.) This blog was not produced on your Mother’s Olivetti.

The argument here seems to be that aerial bombing of cities is never justified because of the civilian casualties. I could get behind that. It seems to me that it is difficult to justify morally most things done to win a war; that’s why war is so horrible. But in war, would I rather the enemy’s civilians die, or that many more enemy civilians and soldiers die AND hundreds of thousand of my own young men die? Who wants to think about it? But I don’t think the question is manifestly clear in the way the issue of slavery is unalloyedly clear. That for me is the difference.

Plenty of countries never got involved and never murdered any children in that war. I think they made the right choice. I’m not sure how owning someone is clearly wrong, but melting children to death by the thousands can be justified.

It seems like you’d have to think it would have been worse to enslave those children than to melt them, in order to be consistent.

Why do you identify with other people based on what government rules them? You say that you would rather have the enemy’s civilians die rather than your own civilians, but why do feel a particular way towards them solely based on which government rules them? How do you know that you wouldn’t have more in common with someone that was melted rather than someone who was doing the melting? Personally, I identify with people based on their philosophical beliefs and their actions; I would consider a peaceful Japanese person to be “my own” more than I would a violent American.

So do you believe that it is morally ok if you intentionally kill 10 innocent people now if it might result in someone else not killing 20 other innocent people?

Additionally: Do you also think it results in less innocent killings by someone else if you demand unconditional surrender?

I would argue that it rather further escalates any war like situation and therefore strongly tends to increase the likelihood of further innocent deaths. I’d only ask for unconditional surrender if I want to destroy them politically completely and want to acquire maximum geo-stratigical control over that area. Innocent lives would not be my top priority if I would think like that, power would be my top priority in that case.

I have not attacked your point, I just wanted to know if for you a reasonable argument in favor of dropping Nukes on innocents really exists and is true. And the only argument for it can be the one spelled out by me. If you are not decided on that point it is ok but I am just curious what you think about it.

So do you believe that it is morally ok if you intentionally kill 10 innocent people now if it might result in someone else not killing 20 other innocent people?

You cannot have different morality from different viewpoints. Either it is yes in general or not at all. So what is it?

Also you are twisting words. Those innocents at Hiroshima and Nagasaki weren’t lost, they were intentionally killed by the US army!

Also being forced to shot at someone else does not relieve you of the responsibility of your actions. It is tragic, but non the less you are not a civilian anymore if you are not resisting being drafted into the army.

Where I live we still have the draft. And I tell you what I gonna do if it ever would come to war. I would run away asap. I would not fight for those stupid idiots “leading” our country… And if I am not able to run away, and I am to weak to resist and I really fight for things I don’t really want to, then our “enemy” has every right to fight me back and kill me!

Yes, you can have different moralities based on view point. How you deal with a child charged with a crime is often different than an adult. How you deal with someone close to you is different than a stranger who commits the same infraction. We have different moralities when dealing with animals versus humans or the mentally deficient versus the less mentally deficient. The list can go on.

You asked about killing ten people to spare 20. This sort of thing happens all the time. Vaccines are an example; a certain number will die due to a negative reaction to the vaccine but that number is far smaller than the number that would have died without the vaccine. By extension of that logic the US military chose to engage civilian targets. There were many other reasons for this choice.

The numbers of civilians that would have been killed during a full scale invasion would have been far greater than the number that died from the A-bomb.

I am curious what country you might be referring to. Here there are alternatives to actually being a combatant.

Are you opposed to all violence? Would you act in your own self defense? Do you think calling the police is engaging in violence as you are effectively asking someone else to perform the violence on your behalf?

No, there is not a different morality for children and animals and mentally deficient people. Their ability to understand actions, and wrong and right influence how we view their actions.

A lion that kills a man will not be sued for murder because a lion can’t understand any of this….

Also you cannot possible claim the US army is not capable of understanding right and wrong and the results of their actions, and they therefore are allowed to operate under a different set of moral values.

Your vaccines example also is wrong. People aren’t forced to take them. It is their free decision to take them and engage the risk of being harmed by it, because they view the risk of getting another illness to be bigger and more harmful.

Those people in Hiroshima didn’t say yes “Yes nuke us, we rather die now to shorten the war” did they?

As I said further below. There was no reason to invade Japan. And even if, you would have sent military men, not civilians, no matter if they were drafted or not.

I’m from Austria.

I am not against violence in general. I am against violence against innocents under any circumstance, especially if it is the kind which is irreparable. Nuking someone is kind of irreparable.

You misunderstand; I do not expect animals, childrren or mental defect to behave morally. Our moral intentions, our ethical behavior toward them varies and varies greatly. Military attitudes toward civilians and combatants vary over time and circumstance.

The primacy of the decision to nuke Japan was to reduce US casualties. That is perfectly understandable. We make such decisions all the time.

Yes, many are vaccinated without their consent. You cannot attend public school without being vaccinated or hold many public positions.

Firefighters may be prohibitted from risking their lives by entering a burning structure to save lives for fear of losing fire fighters. A police officer at Columbine engaged one of the shooters and backed off deciding it was better for the shooter to continue on his shooting spree than for the officer to risk his life. New Yorkers thought it better to not get invovled than to assist Kitty Genovese in any way. These decisions are made all the time, just not on the scale of the issue we discuss here.

Perhaps slavery would have been the alternative to over 500,000 dead and about as many maimed, alongside hundreds of millions of dollars of economic destruction and a complete devastation of half the country.

Would it have been worse if the US had some technological devise that allowed them to beam up every innocent man, woman, and child that died as a result of the fire bombing and atomic bombs, enslave them for the rest of their lives, and threaten to beam up and enslave everyone else in Japan if they didn’t surrender unconditionally? It seems like you’d have to suggest that enslaving these people is unquestionably wrong, but melting them is potentially the right thing to do, if you believe that slavery is clearly wrong, but dropping nukes on people is sometimes OK.

Sometimes in life the choices you face are not good ones, and whatever you do something bad will happen. In the case of slavery, it’s difficult to imagine how anyone would not have the option open to set their slaves free, or at least work toward abolition.

In the case of war, it is often the situation that losing is a worse option that winning, but winning is still bad. The thing is, people know this, so a war monger only needs to get things started in order to push events to the point where backing out is impossible. I’m not a fan of going easy on the war criminals who start these things, because at the start is where the real decision is made, not at the end.

It’s a pity that Bob did not emphasize what an economic nonsense the Cowen’s “argument” is. We need a psychosis of global war in order to make free markets more productive. Governments liberalize their economies to prepare for wars, and on and on. Surreal.

You know, somehow I’ve gotten in the position of defending atomic war, which is not really how I feel about this. I’m not even sure I agree with Truman’s decision to use the bomb. I do think though that American slavery was the permanent (or at least that was the idea) destruction of the culture and essentially the humanity of a race of people. It spans many generations. The death dealt by the slave masters of the South does seem by any measure to exceed by a wide margin the casualties caused by the atom bomb. And that’s just thinking about death, not to mention the hideous conditions and degraded existence of slaves in the South.

This is not to minimize Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But I think the reason Bob may be getting these very strong reactions on slavery is because of the vast enormity of the crime. Also, realistically, I think notions of accepting anything other than unconditional surrender from the Empire of Japan after the extraordinary atrocities visited on Burma, China, Korea, and of course the attack on Pearl Harbor, not to mention Iwo Jima, etc. — well, let’s just say I can well understand why the Allies did not accept that offer. Certain conduct has to be very very forcefully deterred.

Also, I think it is pretty hard to justify the notion that countries that stayed out of World War II did the “right” things. Fascism was a very very powerful force. It conquered Europe and much of Asia and some of Africa. It committed the 20th century’s most spectacular genocide. Without opposition, it would likely have gotten around to bothering us right here. I think this probably would have happened whether there was a federal government or not.

All that being said, pacifism doesn’t strike me as an unreasonable response to the horrors of war or of slavery. I’m just not so sure at the end of the day it actually works to defeat facism or end slavery. Since we didn’t try it, it’s hard to know for sure.

How does killing a bunch of Japanese civilians atone for the crimes committed by Japanese soldiers in Burma, China, Korea, and Pearl Harbor? That’s not justice. And if it’s not justice, then is it an act of vengeance? Shouldn’t you expect more from your leaders than acts of vengeance?

Oh they certainly listened. Governments will go to some effort to hide their atrocities these days. Those terrorist groups who make a feature of atrocities hide their faces instead … one approach or the other.

“This is not to minimize Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But I think the reason Bob may be getting these very strong reactions on slavery is because of the vast enormity of the crime.”

Yet, mass murdering babies isn’t an enormous crime? Everyone agrees slavery was a horrendous crime. Especially, libertarians considering our views on individual liberty. But, how melting children is not on the same field of evilness as slavery is something that is beyond my ability to comprehend.

“But I think the reason Bob may be getting these very strong reactions on slavery is because of the vast enormity of the crime.”

Yes, enormous indeed, whereas killing and starving 25% of the black population of the South in the war is just a side note to their liberation. No crime there. Let alone 620 000 dead overall (which corresponds to 6 million in today’s numbers, as a percentage of population. A nice Holocaust, but don’t compare that to slavery, no, no).

Recall the flack Judge Napolitano received for truthfully saying that runaway slaves were returned by the north to the south after the Civil War began? Recall the flack we received for saying the same thing? The follow are pages 188-189 from “The Slave Catchers” by Stanley W. Campbell:

I thought it was generally accepted that the Civil War was not conducted with the purpose of freeing the slaves. It was obviously much more complicated. Are you saying that it is generally believed in the USA that the war was started with the purpose of freeing slaves?

I would absolutely say that most people in the USA believe that the purpose of the war was to free slaves. Suggesting anything else means you are a supporter of slavery and a neo-confederate. Americans are taught from early childhood that Lincoln is the hero that freed the slaves and saved the country.

I wondered about this, and had a quick look. It may not be quite as bad as you think.
A CNN poll found: “While 52% of Americans said that Confederate leaders seceded to keep slavery legal in their states, 42% said slavery was not the main reason.”
A poll in 2011 found “There is no consensus among the public about the primary cause of the Civil War, but more (48%) say that the war was mainly about states’ rights than say it was mainly about slavery (38%). Another 9% volunteer that it was about both equally.”

Yeah, this claim is largely incorrect. Although some Commissioners did in fact send some arrested fugitive slaves back to the South, I think if you investigate you’ll find that the historical consensus is that the practice wasn’t a policy so much as a policy vacuum and soon more or less disappeared as military commanders refused to return slaves and they were treated as war contraband and freed. As the federal government became more hostile to slavery the practice pretty much stopped altogether.

Also, I mean the Civil War was a catastrophe, but unless you’re really really sure that slavery was about to die out on its own, which I think is in fact a doubtful proposition, you really do have to do something about it. Maybe you have to do something violent about it because slavery is itself ia profoundly violent and aggressive institution. Nobody’s saying the Civil War wasn’t horrible, but if one thinks that was the only practical way to end slavery, well, you know, that seems like a justification to me. Now if you really think slavery was just dying out on its own, then I think I would agree the war gets a lot harder to justify.

Well, I think that’s a little bit of an oversimplification. The claim seems to be made largely to suggest it was a federal or northern policy to return fugitive slaves during the Civil War. If it happened once or twice (it happened more than that, clearly) I’m not sure it supports the point. I’m not sure as a matter of reality (how much it really did happen) it supports the point either.

Nevertheless, It’s clearly true that the war didn’t start over slavery alone, although clearly that was a huge factor in secession and war. Whether that particular fact makes the Civil War more or less evil or good, I’m not sure.

“Nevertheless, It’s clearly true that the war didn’t start over slavery alone although clearly that was a huge factor in secession and war. “.

the war did not start over slavery AT ALL. Secession started over slavery in some southern states, but not in others. Texas did not have any slaves but seceded. Virginia, Tennessee, Arkansas and North Carolina did have slaves, but they did not secede until they were invaded by Lincoln. At any rate, the South did not start the war and Lincoln’s thinking about slavery and secession is best reflected here:

“If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that.”

Right, so the North would have invaded the South even if the South had seceded for a principled reason such as self-governance. In other words, the North invaded the South under the “principle” of forced “cooperation”, which is ironic for anyone claiming that the North invaded the South to end, well, forced cooperation.

If the government of Kansas declared tomorrow that it was unilaterally seceding from the United States, because it wanted to force half of its population into slavery, and it then ordered troops to attack US bases and to steal US property, no doubt you would support it given your sympathy for violent slave owners.

“of course you shouldn’t forget that a very large proportion of the southern population were slaves, i.e. prisoners, when you talk about north vs south.”

Is that directed at me? As it doesn’t look like it has anything to do with my very straightforward (in my humble opinion) question.

If we’re going to do that though, perhaps in consideration of some other question, we need to consider that it wasn’t exactly North vs South, but Union vs Confederacy – to which both sides had slaves i.e. prisoners – what constitutes a “large proportions” is anybody’s guess honestly.

“I’m still confused as to why you thought the number or proportion of slaves was relevant in the first place.”

My initial comment was:

“of course you shouldn’t forget that a very large proportion of the southern population were slaves, i.e. prisoners, when you talk about north vs south.”

People talk about north vs south, but a very large proportion of the southern population were slaves – up to 47% of the population in some southern states. Presumably these people were not supporters of the regime which enslaved, brutalised and killed them.
But they were part of the southern population. So we can assume that at least 47% of the population in some southern states did not support the Confederacy.

Indeed, it certainly sounds plausible that at least 47% of the population didn’t support the Confederacy, that was never being discussed though. I don’t recall talking about popular support at all though.

Unless you are saying that *that’s* why the U.S. fought a (defensive?) war with the (entire) Confederacy. Are you?

Well the Confederates started the war by attacking the US. The US never recognized the Confederacy as a legitimate government, or their declared secession as legitimate. It was considered to be an illegitimate rebellion brought about by the ‘slave powers’ against the US.

“One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war, while the Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it.”

Even if one fully grants that the Confederacy was unprovoked and illegally aggressed against the Union at Ft. Sumter (i.e. attacked) I’m not sure how that justifies the entire invasion of the Confederacy, nor makes it in any way defensive.

If one said, “hey, the North did start the war but they were completely just in doing so, as the South was filled with jerks” (or something to that effect they’d be on sounder footing.

“if S. Carolina just did nothing at the Ft., ceteris paribus, would Lincoln have still invaded the South?”

The south was believed to still be legally part of the US, so moving troops into that region was not considered to be an invasion, like an invasion of a foreign country as you keep describing it. Lincoln originally moved troops into the south to retake specific US property, such as forts.

“The south was believed to still be legally part of the US, so moving troops into that region was not considered to be an invasion, like an invasion of a foreign country as you keep describing it.”

Yes and no, the US has never been a military state so marching troops moving troops into and through a State is not seen as a non-issue. But that’s besides the point, of course. If you don’t like the term invasion, pick something more neutral.

“Lincoln originally moved troops into the south to retake specific US property, such as forts.”

Again, you dodge the question. Assume they allowed the union to continue it’s hold on *all* federal property, would he have sent in troops when say, the tariff money dried up or they ignored new federal laws passed?

“1. The war wasn’t started over slavery. The End.”
Claptrap. Slavery was not the only issue, but it was an issue. Over simplification to remove it from the causes of the war is simply misleading. It may be reasonable to say the war wasn’t started only over slavery, or wasn’t started to free the slaves, or similar constructions.

Where there are multiple contributing factors, it is possible to say that none of them was the cause. If we add these up, we end up with no cause at all.

I see no reason libertarians need to be disingenuous. Calhoun argued slavery was a positive good. South Carolina said slavery was a factor in their decision to secede. No reason to deny slavery as a factor in the war. However, there is also no reason for the other side to be close minded about the likely ending of slavery in its own terms. Some say we would still have slavery today if the South were allowed to secede. Obviously, in all likelihood, the slavery would have died out.

Cowen is not saying “war is good” or “war is bad” but is pointing out that some research shows that when government are in a situation where war is a possibility they tend to have policies that spur a faster rate of economic growth.

One of the things they do is (according to the research) “liberalize the economy”. I assume that Bob would agree that if the threat of war led to governments liberalizing the economy then it would not be a surprise to see an increase in growth as well.

I agree with Bob’s point expressed in: “I am criticizing the fact that in modern American life, it is a far worse sin to even say or write something that could conceivably be construed as tolerating slavery, whereas discussing the benefits of war carries no professional repercussions and hardly any social ostracism”

I just don’t see why he raising this in the context of a post that is trying to look objectively at the impact of war expectations and is no way supportive of war itself..

“Cowen is not saying “war is good” or “war is bad” but is pointing out that some research shows that when government are in a situation where war is a possibility they tend to have policies that spur a faster rate of economic growth.”

Higher than what though? The immediately preceding time period? Or the counter-factual world of no war and destruction and free markets?

Both Indiana and Ohio adopted new state constitutions in 180l. Indiana adopted the harshest and extensive racial restrictions on free blacks of any state constitution at that time. The 1851 Constitution continued to withhold the right to vote from free blacks. Article 2, Section 5:”No Negro or Mulatto shall have the right of suffrage.”

“All contracts made with any Negro or Mulatto coming into the State, contrary to the provisions of the foregoing section, shall be void; and any person who shall employ such Negro or Mulatto, or otherwise encourage him to remain in the State, shall be fined in any sum not less than ten dollars, nor more than five hundred dollars.”

But it didn’t end there. The money collected from those fines was to be used only for colonizing free blacks to some other part of the world. Article 13, Section 3:

“All fines which may be collected for a violation of the provisions of this article, or any law which may hereafter be passed for the purpose of carrying the same into execution, shall be set apart and appropriated for the colonization of such Negroes and Mulattoes, and their descendants, as may be in the State at the adoption of this Constitution, and max be willing to emigrate.”

And the most severe restriction of all was the blatant prohibition that forbade blacks from entering Indiana. Article 13, Section 1 states, “No Negro or Mulatto shall come into or settle in the State, after the adoption of this Constitution.”

There was no welcome mat for free blacks in prewar Indiana. The free black man could not settle in Indiana; he could not work in Indiana; he could not enter into a contract in Indiana; he could not vote in Indiana; and he could not serve in the militia in Indiana. The only thing he could do was leave. Moreover, the 1851 Constitution made provision to finance his departure.

Hold on now. The Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments were a direct result of the Northern victory in the Civil War. That is an example of federal power forcing a change on states that apparently had permitted slavery before the war (I’m not knowledgeable about that issue). No war, no post-Civil War Constitutional amendments.

You don’t know what the alternative future might have rendered any more than I do. It might have happened because that was they the way the zeitgeist winds were blowing with or without the war. Further, those amendments passed because the states that seceded did not vote on the amendments.

As I previously mentioned, the north could have allowed secession without war and then led a heroic lifestyle as an example for all.

4. Here is my version of how to have rid the US of slavery without a war:

Though the Northern states ratified the Fourteenth Amendment, it was decisively rejected by the Southern and border states, failing to secure the 3/4 of the states necessary for ratification under Article V. The Radical Republicans responded with the Reconstruction Act of 1867, which virtually expelled the Southern states from the Union and placed them under martial law. To end military rule, the Southern states were required to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment. As one Republican described the situation: “the people of the South have rejected the constitutional amendment and therefore we will march upon them and force them to adopt it at the point of the bayonet.”

Spielberg’s Upside-Down History: The Myth of Lincoln and the Thirteenth Amendment
[www]http://archive.lewrockwell.com/dilorenzo/dilorenzo245.html

There is no evidence that Lincoln provided any significant assistance in the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment in the House of Representatives in 1865, but there is evidence of his effectiveness in getting an earlier Thirteenth Amendment through the House and the Senate in 1861.

…

The Corwin Amendment would have prohibited the federal government from ever interfering with Southern slavery.

you really shouldn’t take what Dilorenzo writes too seriously. He tries to shoehorn complex history into his simplistic ideological narrative, and he also lies a lot. But I suppose you don’t really care whether what he says is true or not, so long as it feels right to you.

I think a better lesson is to not take anything Philippe writes too seriously.

When does DiLorenzo lie a lot?

Just as I was thinking that there was absolutely nothing left for the folks who celebrate the Civil War genocide to obfuscate about. Of course, there is nothing left for them to obfuscate about, but that won’t stop them.

Kinda hard to have slavery in a state where all black people are banned from existing. But we know that those people who banned blacks from their state were really bleeding hearts about the condition of black people and this justifies the 800,000 people slaughtered in the Civil War.

The issue is that the northerners were not concerned about the living conditions of individual black people. They were racists who considered black people to be inferior. Concern by northerners for the living conditions of blacks in the south was clearly not the reason for the north setting upon the south with an invasion that turned into a barbaric policy of scorched earth.

All I am saying is that the north did not invade the south out of concern for the well being of blacks in the south which is the usual excuse we hear. And that if you dispute the official story, you are called a racist neo-confederate. Same old same old.

Oregon also adopted its state constitution in 1857. This was submitted to and approved by Congress and signed into law by President Buchanan in 1859. It contained numerous blatant discriminatory provisions.

Article II, Section 2 restricts the franchise to “white male” citizens. If the meaning of this language is not plain enough, there is another section of the same article that leaves no doubt. Article II, Section 6: “No Negro, Chinaman, or Mulatto shall have the right of suffrage.”

Article XV, Section 8 further limits the rights of Chinese:

“No Chinaman, not a resident of die State at the adoption of this Constitution, shall ever hold any real estate, or mining claims or work any mining claims therein.”

However, it is Article I, Section 35 that contains the most sweeping, restrictive language in the history of state constitutions:

“No free Negro, or Mulatto, not residing in this State at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall come, reside, or be within this State, or hold any real estate, or make any contracts, or maintain any suit therein; and the Legislative Assembly shall provide bv penal laws, for the removal, by public officers, of all such Negroes, and Mulattoes. and for their effectual exclusion from the State, and for the punishment of persons who shall bring them into the state, or employ, or harbor them.”

In Oregon, by constitutional restriction, free blacks could not visit, settle, work, own property, enter into contracts, or have access to the courts. These restrictions are for the “effectual exclusion from the state” of free blacks. This is what the Constitution of Oregon said when it was approved by Congress for statehood. It was the only state ever admitted to the Union that had a raced-based exclusion law in its constitution at the time of admission.

Focus on that attention grabbing government projects, and it is easy to gloss over the zillions of more prosperous counter-factual worlds that could have otherwise existed had innovators in the market been even more free than they were.

Cowen cannot even make the relatively nuanced argument that he is making.

1. I think that all of our opponents continually ignore and minimize out-of-existence the violence inherent in violent intervention in economic matters. To them, it’s just another of many (la-di-da) “tools” for “policy-makers”.

2. Don’t you agree MF that the reason Scott Sumner went all ape-**** on you was because you constantly asked him in a firm but polite manner: “Why the violence?”

3. I think that our opponents continually ignore and minimize out-of-existence the atrocities inherent in war because of their bizarre religious belief in the magical transformative nature of US interventionism. The Neo-Cons are still spouting that nonsense about Iraq and Afghanistan. That’s the party line on the Civil War. That’s what everyone believed about US intervention in WWI. Etc….

1. Agreed. It’s Orwellian. Sterile phrases such as “policy”, “implement”, “tools”, “stimulus”, all of this is specifically designed to cover up – mostly in the statist’s own mind – that what they want is more guns pointed more often at innocent people.

2. It is likely. For those who have spent years trying to convince themselves that it’s OK to advocate for permanent initiations of violence against individuals, be it in the name of social welfare, utilitarianism, pragmatism, second bestism, and on and on, tend to encounter psychological shocks when confronted with reminders that have staked a large intellectual investment in a loser. It is similar to capital market investors in denial who refuse to liquidate loser investments.

MF,
You’ve called Scott a socialist on the site dozens of times. You call THAT polite? (To a Chicago School economist, a socialist is an insult) You’ve also acted as if we were the moral equivalent of government loving thugs. (Which we are not) THAT is why we don’t like you. I disagree with Bob Murphy, but I find him to be a perfectly polite individual. he could teach you lessons, mon ami.

Philippe, ALL socialists are “mixed economy” advocates using that particular understanding.

Not even Stalin could nor did he desire to controll ALL productive activity totally.

Every socialist has their own finite, less than total desired “plan”.

If you advocate for socialist money, education, protection and security, then you are a socialist to that extent.

According to the criteria you’re insisting is required to accurately call someone a socialist, would mean there has never been an actual socialist, since throughout history no socialist tyrant had total control, they only ever had partial control.

“Oh, but if they have 75.27638542876548762354768% control, then I will concede they were socialists. But not 75.27638542876548762354767% control!”

The extension of the prohibition to bills of credit must give pleasure to every citizen …

…

In addition to these persuasive considerations, it may be observed, that the same reasons which show the necessity of denying to the States the power of regulating coin, prove with equal force that they ought not to be at liberty to substitute a paper medium in the place of coin.

Is Ron Paul Wrong on Money and the Constitution?
[www]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40MBdt1BQgE

To say I acted “as if” such and such, is weasel wording. You can make anyone out to be anything with such a tactic.

Yes, again, I understand if you FEEL insulted by the arguments I am making, such as the incredibly way out of left field argument that someone who wants socialist money, socialist protection and security, socialist progressive taxation, socialist education, and the list goes on and on, is…gasp!…advocating socialist and is therefore by definition a socialist to that extent.

I realize that socialist is an insult to those from the Chicago school. But how in the world does telling a truth that you find “offensive” matter to whether or not I am polite? You can politely tell someone something that they might take offense to.

I don’t care about your claims of whether or not you “like” me. I don’t like you, because I don’t like violence advocating thugs like you. Yes, you and Sumner are writing arguments that is government loving thuggery. You may have your own type of government love that differs from those you believe are actually government loving thugs, but please don’t make the mistake of believing that you’re something you’re not.

It sounds to me like the issue is, if you believe only a war would have ended slavery, then there’s a potential moral justification even for the horrors of the Civil War. If you believe the War was solely about preventing the South from seceding then Libertarians at least believe there’s no moral justification. Again, it seems to me that these issues are not entirely free from doubt, and people can argue about them in good faith.

Gee, I think that’s kind of the mainstream historical consensus, at least if one means ending in the foreseeable future. My understanding is the argument that slavery was dying on its own is very much a minority view. Doesn’t make its necessarily wrong, just the minority view (I think).

Gee, I think that’s kind of the mainstream historical consensus, at least if one means ending in the foreseeable future. My understanding is the argument that slavery was dying on its own is very much a minority view. Doesn’t make its necessarily wrong, just the minority view (I think).

Sorry about the repeat response. I still don’t understand how to reply very well. Anyway, I think the European slave trade had quite different characteristics, and the social pressure on the shave trade was very different in Europe. In America, slavery was key to the Southern economy and way of life, and abolitionist pressures were in part responsible for the South seceding. I think (on this I’m not an expert) that because of that it would have been very difficult for slavey simply to die away in the South in the same manne it did in Europe, although it’s hard to believe it would still exist in the same form today if the Confederacy had been allowed simply to set up a new country.

Maybe you’re right, considering it’s role not just economically but socially, it was a big part of the culture. The South also planned to Annex more territory, so it most likely would have gone on longer had everything war-related gone in their favor.

However, even Southern opinion of the institution was waning (the leaders and even large slave owners were willing to abolish it), even if that wasn’t the case, it’d be extremely hard to maintain if runaway slaves were no longer returned. (I believe that’s what led to its downfall in Brazil)

So, again, I’m probably outside of the mainstream, but I can’t see how one can say only the war could have ended it.